19:05, MONDAY AUGUST 23, LIMA (03:05/24-08-99 ZULU)
SUNNYDALE ART GALLERY
{CULTURES OF THE PACIFIC}
Willow contemplated the sign over the new wing with an admiring smile. Mrs. Summers had worked long and hard to put that collection together, and getting the loan to renovate the new space had been (from what Buffy said) a slice of financial and bureaucratic hell, but to be here for the wing's opening was... very nice.
"Cool, huh?" Oz agreed.
"Uh-hmm. Shall we?" she asked, offering her arm, very Olde Worlde.
Oz nodded a little, but instead of putting his hand in her crooked elbow, he slid it down the inside of her forearm and laced his fingers into hers, hiding a smile as she shivered. "Why not?"
Buffy watched the redhead blush pink, and hid her smile by turning to her mother. "Pretty not bad, Mom."
"Well, here's hoping it pays off," she fretted.
"Mom, if the gallery was going to collapse, it would've done it in the first year."
"Your confidence in me is whelming," the elder Summers said dryly.
"What can I say? I'm proud: my Mom's managed to run a successful business and single-handedly raise a daughter into a not-too-bad person and pretty good Slayer." Buffy fought the impulse for an instant - Ah, what the hell? It's not like anybody here's going to get on my case for being soft. - and flung a quick, fierce hug around her mother.
"Thanks, honey," Joyce smiled, returning the embrace for a moment, then pulled back and raised a curious eyebrow at her offspring. "And how much of this pride is storing up on motherly affection before making the big move to college in a couple of weeks?"
"Would I do that?" Buffy grinned.
"Are you sure you want me to answer that?"
- * - * - * - * - * - * - * -
Either I'm growing up, or I'm dying of boredom and don't know it.
Buffy stifled the impulse to giggle and took a closer look at a necklace hanging on the wall. Her mother's job to the contrary, she'd never been really, really into art before, but graduating or being at a Grand Re-Opening must have changed something inside her, because some of this stuff was catching her interest. What's this ugly little guy supposed to -
"It's called a tiki," a cultured voice said behind her, with a faint Welsh lilt. The Slayer didn't (quite) jump, then turned to face the speaker.
The woman was in her early fifties, but carried it well enough to pass for twenty years younger. She had an almost aristocratic sort of attractiveness, stern without severity, charming without familiarity, an upper-class air matched with working-class tough; she was about average height, and trim and fit in the way that came only through real exercise, not health-club conscience-salving. Her hair, strawberry blonde densely shot with grey, was cut in a Miss Calendar-like bob that came to just below her ears, and silver-rimmed oval glasses were perched on the bridge of her nose. The grey-blue eyes behind those glasses were warm, but somehow gave Buffy the uncomfortable sense that she was being evaluated - and she didn't even know what the woman was looking for, much less if she'd found it. Her dove-grey pants-suit was a classic example of understated English elegance, and it was complemented by diamond-stud earrings, no fewer than three diamond rings on the middle and ring fingers of her left hand, and a silver necklace that disappeared under her collar.
"The tiki is a fertility symbol," she went on. "New Zealand's Maori natives wear them to promote health and general good fortune. It's carved from greenstone, an indigenous jade reputed to have mystical properties; I've yet to encounter a piece of Maori jewellery with any such powers, though that doesn't necessarily mean they don't exist."
"That would make you Professor Cerian McKellar, AKA 'Indiana Jane for hire'," Buffy smiled sassily. Giles had said a number of things about this woman when he'd heard she was coming to town... and not all of those things had been flattering. Apparently, in addition to being actively assigned as Watcher to a New Zealand-based Slayer - Buffy's predecessor, no less - Cerian had been a paid anthropologist/relic-hunter for the British Museum during Giles' time there, and she'd apparently given most of her attention to her paying job and left the Watching to her son Peter. After her Slayer and son had been gunned down in the street (having run afoul of the Triads, according to official sources), she'd quit with the Council and the Museum and gone hunting both relics and demons full-time... as long as the price was right. "I thought Giles was going to call me when you got into town."
"I came straight here without stopping in to see him; this part of the world is my main area of concern," the Welshwoman waved a hand at the pieces shown in the new area, "and I rather suspected that you'd be here to share the moment with your mother."
"Studying up on me, huh?"
"It's always wise to know who you're dealing with," she nodded. "Besides, your telling the Council where to get off caused rather a stir in our sub-culture."
"I had my reasons," the Slayer declared guardedly.
"And they're none of my business, dear. I was, well... ours is a community that is small and not a little over-prone to secrecy - for obvious reasons - and without the Council's support, you might find that making your way as a Slayer will be rather difficult, unless you can turn elsewhere for information and aid."
"Which is where you come in."
"We need working contacts to stay in business," Cerian shrugged, taking an hors d'ouevre from a table nearby. "Let's be pragmatic: since the Council withdrew its support for Rupert, you've had a fair number of problems keeping up with the play - the incident with the Sisterhood of Jhe trying to open the Hellmouth being a case in point. Unless we pass information around our little community, we can't hope to operate effectively, so we... I think the current jargon is 'network'. We talk to each other, ask for information and give it, sometimes lend a hand when necessary. You and I may well become working associates, Buffy, colleagues, even friends... or we may end up hating each other's guts, but we'll have to do business regardless."
"My, aren't we blunt?"
The ex-professor finished her canapé and smiled. "It saves time. Besides, I have a great deal of experience with this. Just think of me as another Willy the Snitch - only getting information from me would require only the exchange of money and what you Americans call 'markers', not of insults and blows."
- * - * - * - * - * - * - * -
A few metres away, Oz and Willow were inspecting a painting that depicted a New Zealand legend. "'Maui the demi-god beats the Great Fish into submission, cutting pieces of its flesh for food and forming the North Island.' Well, that's one way to get sushi," the witch noted dryly.
Oz looked at her sideways, one eyebrow quirked in the closest to an expression of amazement she'd ever seen from him.
"Occasionally, I'm callous and strange," she smiled, in her best dignified manner. He hadn't been there for the skirmish with the Jhe demons, after all, and she quite liked that one-liner.
"Whaddya mean, 'occasionally'?" another man deadpanned behind her other shoulder.
Willow whirled and stared. "Omigod - XANDER!"
"How ya doin', Will?" he grinned.
God, he looks so good! raced across the redhead's mind as she flung herself into his arms and hugged him for all she was worth. He'd only been gone for a few weeks, but his departure had left a huge, gaping hole inside her, and for all her shame at that, for however disloyal it might be to Oz, she couldn't make it any less true. Xander had always been there, so much a part of her life that without him there, she... just wasn't complete.
Xander's arms closed around his lifelong friend almost tight enough to bruise, and he rested his cheek against her hair for a long moment, taking a deep breath, inhaling her unique Willow scent, savouring the soft warmth of her against him, luxuriating in the reunion in a way his hormones didn't play any part in. Well, not the really important part, anyway. All the million thoughts flying around inside his head really came down to just one thing. "I missed you, Will," he whispered.
"I missed you, too."
Seeing Oz's gaze on them both, he stifled what he'd been about to say and simply held her for a long, long moment, soaking up the sensations, saving up the memories as best he could, before slowly, reluctantly, letting her go. Again. "So, what's the what?"
"Not much of not much, until college starts. But what about you - where have you been?"
"Here, there, and the other place." There was a certain smug vagueness in his tone; even if he told her, Hellmouth or no Hellmouth, she'd never believe him.
"Why didn't you call?"
"I've been busy," he shrugged.
"Getting a tan?" Oz hazarded with the faintest hint of acid, regarding the younger man levelly.
It was no less than the truth: Xander was looking a little weathered, and Willow frowned a little as she took in the changes. He looked fitter - not in the bulky way of a weight-lifter, but instead with the lean stamina of a runner. There was a new tone in his manner as well, a confidence, a competence, and his movements gave an impression of controlled strength and grace that was almost... predatory? That impression was only reinforced by his outfit: midnight-blue pants and shirt, under a black wool sweater with reinforced joints and button-down epaulettes; the only hint of relieving colour was the American flag sewn to his sleeve, just below his left shoulder-seam.
It's probably just the clothes, Willow mused. Black makes everybody look different, better. Not that Xander ever needed the help to look great, but - no, no, bad Willow, bad! You don't - you mustn't - think things like that about Xander again!
"Did I - Xander!" Buffy cried, hurling herself into the group; she wrapped him up much as Willow had done, and let out a little wince as he lifted her clear off the floor. "Ow! When did you get so strong, you big goof? What are you doing back here?"
"I'm not back back, Buff," he smiled, setting the Slayer down. "Sunnydale got between the 'here' I was leaving and the 'there' I was heading for, and I heard there was a showing here, so I figured I'd stop in and say 'Hey'."
"Good. If you hadn't, I'd'a kicked your sorry ass."
Xander's smile was a little odd, almost... amused? "If you say so, Buff. So, how is everybody?"
"Pretty much the same," Oz said, still regarding him with something just shy of open hostility. "You smell different, though."
The dark-haired youth gave the werewolf a steady look, then wondered idly, "Different how?"
"Can't say." Oz couldn't quite put his finger on the change, or how to describe it, and even his normal stoicism couldn't hide his puzzlement.
"Colour me shocked." Xander, on the other hand, still had that 'I know something you don't' thing going, though he was far from open gloating.
"Guys, can we save the macho posturing until after we celebrate the reunion?" Buffy drawled, snagging four cups of punch from the table next to her. "Xander, you mutant, you've been away too long and we've missed you too much."
"Then what about a toast?" Xander suggested, raising his cup like he was in some old movie. "To knowing where and with who you belong, and to being there with them."
"Belonging!" the girls chorused, rapping their cups against his.
"Belonging," Oz nodded, rather less enthusiastically; his eyes were still on Xander, and the look he was giving the taller youth boded ill.
All four Scoobies drained their cups, and Xander grinned. "So, where's the food around here? I haven't had a bite since I left Vegas."
That occasioned a general laugh. "Some things never change," Willow giggled.
B-B-B-BAM!
Screams. Everyone looked towards the gunshots.
Jeff Rance, the security guard that Joyce Summers had hired when she'd started this gallery, lay sprawled on his back at the mouth of the entryway to the new wing, the centre of a rapidly growing crimson lake, four rents gaping in his chest and an astounded expression on his face. He'd never even had time to go for his pistol.
Aw, shit! Xander moaned to himself, his stomach sinking. Looks like Agate's running true to form after all.
Four individuals dressed all in black (including Kevlar vests and ski-masks) had appeared at the wing entrance, each wielding an assault carbine and with a pistol at their belt. "Ladies and gentlemen," the leading man called with a Russian accent, "I'm sure you realise what this is, so please, remain calm, co-operate, and nothing unpleasant need happen." For punctuation, he aimed the still-smoking muzzle of his CAR-15 at Joyce, 'encouraging' her to abandon her sidle towards the gallery office and the phone it contained. She took the hint and went very still.
Smart, Mrs S. Agate's got ninety-six rounds left in that double-drum C-MAG, and that sicko ain't gonna be shy about handing 'em out if anyone gives him lip.
Buffy started forward - and Xander's hand lashed out sidelong, closing over her wrist like a vice. She was startled by how strong his grip actually was. "No," he said under his breath. "If you try anything, they'll shoot more people."
"I have to do something," she hissed.
"Wait!"
Buffy looked at him in amazement: he wasn't suggesting patience, he was commanding it. "For what?"
He jerked his chin a little, and she followed his gaze. The gunsels had missed one of the guests: Cerian had been behind a column as they went past, and now she was edging around it behind them, a sleek autopistol in one hand. And where the hell was she hiding that? Buffy wondered, hurriedly averting her eyes before she gave the demon-hunter away.
Two of the bandits started on the exhibits, dropping the entire contents of the new wing into gym-bags. Paintings had their frames smashed away so they could be rolled up; display cases were caved in with gun-butts. As they worked, the other two, including the Russian, prowled the room like caged tigers, keeping watch on the patrons/hostages, their fingers on the triggers and their eyes wary.
After a minute or so, Russkie came to a halt in front of the Scoobies, looking them over with sneering eyes. He indicated Willow with the muzzle of his carbine. "You. Step forward."
Oz stepped between them, more by instinct than consideration. "Not happening," he said, his voice tight.
Without a blink of hesitation, Russkie swung up and smashed the werewolf right in the ribs with the butt of his weapon, sending him sprawling. The other unoccupied gunsel stepped in and kept the other Scoobies covered as the Russian stood over Oz, wound up, and outright lifted him off the floor with a boot in the stomach. Another kick took Oz in the face, knocking him senseless, and a final stomping blow tore his forehead open and bounced his head off the parquet floor with a sickening clonk.
"Anyone else feel mouthy?" Russkie asked the room at large, then looked back to Willow. "I said step forward, Red. I won't say it a third time," he added, aiming his CAR-15 down at the fallen youth.
Pale with barely-controlled terror but maintaining her poise nonetheless, the witch obeyed his order; when she was within arm's reach, Russkie swung the carbine around on its sling so it hung across his back, took the pistol from his belt, wrapped one arm around Willow's midsection, yanked her back against him, and jammed the pistol's muzzle up under her jaw. He looked right at Buffy, earred back the hammer, and pulled the trigger; now, the only thing keeping Willow alive was his restraining thumb.
Buffy's hands clenched, and Xander's grasp on her wrist closed with bruising force.
"If you try anything, Goldilocks, you'll see your little friend's legendary brain first-hand."
"You realise you're a dead man," Xander said conversationally. And if you're lucky, Buffy'll get to you before I do.
Russkie cocked his head, looked back and forth between Buffy and Xander, then smiled nastily. "I think we've got a couple of heroes here," he called to his accomplices.
The gunman who'd covered them during Oz's beating stepped a little closer, shouldering his weapon. "Too bad heroes tend to get killed," he sneered in a French accent, his finger closing on the trigger.
Cerian stepped around the column at the wing's entrance, her pistol in both hands. "DROP YOUR GUNS!"
In the split-second where everyone was looking that way, Xander let go of Buffy's wrist and lunged forward, even faster than she was moving. His left hand seized the man's wrist and twisted down and outwards, turning the man's arm out straight and the pistol away from Willow; the hammer fell, and an ear-splitting POW! sounded as the bullet buried itself in the floor. Xander's right hand came over Willow's head like a spear-thrust, his stiffened fingertips driving into the man's windpipe. Russkie made a choked sound and went staggering, releasing Willow to clutch his throat. Even as the gunner reeled, Xander grabbed Willow by one shoulder and pushed her down and back past him. His free hand snatched the pistol out of the air and brought it around to slam the butt into the side of the man's skull, sending him crashing to the ground, stunned.
Buffy let only the thinnest sliver of her mind marvel at her friend's new skill as she crossed the two paces to Frenchie, who was still looking the wrong way; she knocked the carbine's muzzle up towards the ceiling with one hand - a staccato B-B-B-BAM! assaulting her ears as the weapon fired a burst into the plaster - grabbed the gunner by both collars, rolled backwards onto her butt, and drove both feet into the robber's midsection, throwing him arcing back over her head to land in an untouched display case with a resounding CRASH of shattering glass.
Both of the other robbers had turned on Cerian and opened fire without thinking, driving her back into cover even before Xander and Buffy reached their victims; all the other patrons had gone to ground. Now, the ex-professor leaned back around the column and into view again, her glasses crooked and her hair messed. More autofire came her way; high-velocity bullets blasted chunks from the column, and one of her eyelids twitched as a razor-edged shard of concrete slashed her cheek open, but she coolly, calmly raised the pistol shoulder-high and fired at the closest gunner twice, KR-KRAK! Her face was utterly expressionless as her target choked and crumpled, clutching at the bloody rents the bullets had torn through his neck, and it didn't change any as she ducked back out of sight.
The last of the robbers snarled something in what sounded like Spanish and shouldered her weapon, firing a long burst into the column, eroding Cerian's cover like a fire-hose would erode a sand-castle. Suddenly, the burst ended - not with the noise and fury of another shot, or the click of an empty chamber, but with a sickening metallic crunch as something shattered inside the carbine. Another curse; she let the carbine swing loose on its sling and went for her pistol.
"FREEZE!" Xander roared, dropping to one knee and taking a textbook two-handed firing position, his acquired pistol aimed right at the gunner's chest.
The robber saw Xander had her beaten and just stopped, her posture that of abject defeat; she didn't raise her hands, but she stopped going for her sidearm.
Just as Xander was nodding a 'smart move' to her, Cerian swung back into sight, in a shooter's crouch that matched Xander's, closed one eye, and took deliberate aim along her pistol's laser-sight beam.
The beam caught the robber's attention, and she turned and locked eyes with Cerian -
- her eyes widened -
- she snatched for her pistol again -
- the relic-hunter almost casually shot the woman through the left eye, KR-KRAK! The robber's head snapped back, its back third blowing away in a gruesome spray of blood and bone and tissue, and she dropped straight down, utterly limp.
After the body hit the ground, there was an eternal split-second of thunderous silence. The air was dark with gunsmoke; the acrid reek of cordite bit at the nostrils; ears punished by the din of gunfire in close quarters strained to hear anything past their own ringing.
Cerian rose to her feet and crossed to where her first victim lay, keeping her weapon aimed at him all the while. She stood over him for a moment, watching him choke for breath, her gunhand hanging loose at her side... then casually swung her hand forward again, pumped two shots into his face, and turned away to go to Oz's aid.
Motion to Buffy's side caught her eye, and she watched as Xander crossed to where Russkie lay face-up on the floor, groaning. He knelt down over the robber and pistol-whipped him again, knocking him all the way out. With that done, he decocked the pistol, jammed it into his waistband, tore the man's carbine free of its sling and laid it aside, then yanked off the robber's ski-mask. "I told you," he noted, his voice pitched only for his victim's ears. "If you live another day after this, I'll be very impressed."
Only Buffy was close enough to overhear him, and that only because of enhanced Slayer senses. The complete absence of compassion in Xander's manner made her blink in astonishment. After a moment, the dark-haired Scooby yanked the man's left collar down for an instant, nodded to himself, and rearranged the man's clothing like nothing had happened. Then, beyond him - "XANDER!"
The dark-haired youth went into a sideways roll, turning to face the target of her gaze and scooping up the discarded carbine as he went. Frenchie had hauled himself upright, wavering on his feet, covered in glass fragments, and was aiming his CAR-15 their way one-handed; his left arm hung limp, blood streaming from several wicked gashes. Xander skidded to a halt sprawled on his elbows and belly, shouldered his liberated carbine, thumbed the selector to 'single', and fired four aimed shots in less than a second. The rounds stitched across the chest of Frenchie's 'bullet-proof' vest, punching straight through, blasting large chunks out of his back and spraying gore across the wall. Dying spasms closed Frenchie's finger on the carbine's trigger, and five more rounds tore through the ceiling as the bullets hammered him backwards. He hit the wall; sagged like he'd been boned; the carbine fell from slack fingers; and the dead man crumpled, sprawling on his belly with all the grace of a bag of laundry.
Another moment of stillness and silence.
Xander pushed himself to his knees. After another moment of observation, he rose to his feet and moved to within a couple of metres of the fallen man at a deliberate pace. Despite the adrenaline still surging through his system, his breathing was controlled and regular, his motions precise and cautious; his sights stayed level, never leaving the target's chest for an instant.
After a moment, his adrenaline-sharpened senses took in the man's complete stillness, and the crimson lake that was rapidly forming on the floor beneath him, confirming what he'd thought as soon as the man fell. Target neutralised - scratch Spinel. Anything else he might have felt about what he'd just done was lost, washed away in the familiar rush of adrenaline, the satisfaction of surviving and saving his friends. "Clear!" he breathed, dialling the carbine's selector to 'safe' and letting the weapon hang loose in his left hand. "Thanks for the warning, Buff." Just that fast, he dismissed the corpse, turned away, and knelt by Willow's side, helping her sit up. "You okay, Will?"
She gave him a somewhat shaky smile. "I-I-I'm fine," she finally managed, shaking her head. "Th-thanks. Oz?"
"Ask her," he suggested, gesturing at where Cerian was just crouching at the fallen werewolf's side. "Miss....?"
"Cerian McKellar," she provided crisply, gently pressing Oz back onto the floor as he tried to rise. He was hugging one arm tight to his ribs, his face was covered in blood, and his eyes were unfocused. "Buffy and I are in the same line of work, though I don't have her special aptitude for it. Has someone called an ambulance?" she cried to the room at large.
"They're on the way," Joyce Summers answered, returning from her office with a first-aid kit and a cordless phone in the crook of her shoulder. "Police too."
"Good." Cerian shrugged off her suit jacket (revealing a white silk blouse and a Rosen 'Style Master' shoulder-holster), bundled it up, and tucked it under Oz's head. "Incidentally, Xander, that was nicely done. How did you get the pistol off that first fellow?"
"He dropped it when Buffy tore Willow free," he supplied easily. "I figured you might need some help, but by the time I was ready, they were all down - or I thought they were, anyway."
Buffy shot him a baffled look. "That's -"
SHUT UP!!! his eyes begged.
What the hell? she wondered. Xander - the same man who'd begged her not to kill Faith not two months ago - had just killed a guy stone dead, he didn't seem to care a bit, and he didn't even want credit for saving the day? Okay, what have you done with the real Xander?
Willow was just as mystified, but she picked up on the play a little quicker than the Slayer. "Y-yeah, that's about how I saw it. How's Oz?"
Outside, sirens began to approach.
"Looks like a concussion and some broken ribs. He should be fine, with professional attention," Cerian clipped, then turned her attention to the other guests, many of whom were doing their best to pull a quiet fade. "No-one go anywhere: the police will need to take statements from all of you."
Buffy moaned in sudden dread. "Oh, great: another chance for Detective Stein to bust my chops."
- * - * - * - * - * - * - * -
TRANSCRIPT OF SATELLITE TELEPHONE COMMUNICATION
INTERCEPTED BY ECHELON ELECTRONIC-INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM
TOP SECRET*****OPERATION OZYMANDIUS/PHASE BLACK WIDOW
INITIATOR: SUBJECT OPAL
SUNNYDALE, CA., USA
RECIPIENT: SUBJECT ONYX
SUNNYDALE, CA., USA
DATE/TIME: 0707Z (07:07:23/24-08-99, GMT - 23:07:23/23-07-99, PDT)
OPAL: [sarcasm] "Well, that went brilliantly, didn't it? What the fuck did Agate think he was doing?"
ONYX: "It would seem his ambition rather got the better of him."
OPAL: [sarcasm] "Gee. Ya think? Have the others taken heed?"
ONYX: "I rather doubt any of them will be violating your orders in the near future, yes."
OPAL: "Good. The 'botched robbery' was always an amateur ploy, and we're professionals, [extreme sarcasm] aren't we? Where were Peridot and Turquoise, anyway?"
ONYX: "Peridot's in position to take care of our other little problem, he should be able to keep Agate from telling the authorities anything awkward. Turquoise was driving the getaway vehicle, he's here at the safehouse now. I've already torn a strip off him a yard wide."
OPAL: "I see. Is everything set for Thursday night?"
ONYX: "Yes, but that was set up on the assumption that Osbourne and Rosenberg would have their usual night out. I can't see it happening with him injured."
OPAL: "Just be ready."
CALL TERMINATED BY SUBJECT OPAL 07:08:22/24-08-99.
Chapter End Notes:
There's a reason most black-market assault-rifles are relatively cheap: the vast majority are ex-military surplus, most often stolen and usually with prior service-lives of many years. As our 'bandit' learns, abruptly and too late, worn-out firing pins are a particular hazard. (Of course, someone may have 'forgotten' to mention that little factoid when they were buying this gear.... [evil grin])